10 June 1943: Colored Selectees and 18 Year Old Registrants

Local newspapers can have the most interesting items. While searching for an obituary for a man who was supposed to have died in April 1943, I found two small tidbits in The Clayton Tribune, the newspaper covering Rabun Co., GA. Both were on the front page of the 10 June 1943 issue (Volume XLVIII, Number 23).

The first item, located in the third column, was titled “Five Colored Selectees Leave Rabun”:

The following named colored selectees left Clayton on Tuesday morning, June 8th, at 8:25 o’clock for Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia, where they will receive armed forces examination [sic] and those who pass will be inducted into the branch of service for which they are found best qualified. After being sworn in they will be granted fourteen day furloughs.

Various other issues included letters from local soldiers and small items on placements into new units. Unlike now, local papers were once a font of gossip and other news items of only local interest, and so they can also be a wonderful source on the day-to-day lives of our ancestors.